Team:Stanford-Brown

Surviving in the harsh conditions of space is not easy for an organism. Extreme temperatures, desiccation, and pressures are only some of the problems an intrepid bacterium might face on its journey. We successfully strengthened our organisms with some of these abilities––desiccation and extreme basicity--in preparation for a journey into space!

The surface of Venus is a harsh and unforgiving environment. However, research suggests that there may be layers of its atmosphere that are more temperate. To prepare for tests to see if organisms can survive in the clouds of Venus, we successfully developed cell-cycle dependent reporters to tell us when our cells are happy and dividing!

If we are to colonize space, we are going to need rare metals for materials. But bringing heavy duty equipment for traditional mining is not very viable at all! Bacteria and other biological organisms can be used to extract rare metals from sediment. Bacteria could mine asteroids and do all the work for us, and we equipped their flagella with the tools to do so!